Joran van der Sloot: the Peru murder and the Alabama extortion case
Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch citizen, is held in a high-altitude prison in Peru. He is serving a 28-year sentence for the 2010 murder of Stephany Flores Ramírez and a separate term for drug trafficking. In October 2023 a federal court in Alabama sentenced him to 20 years for extortion and wire fraud. He has said he killed Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005, but he has never been charged or tried over her death.
The disappearance in Aruba
Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old from Alabama, disappeared on 30 May 2005 on the last night of a school graduation trip to Aruba. She was last seen leaving a bar with Mr van der Sloot, then 17, and two brothers, Satish and Deepak Kalpoe. Her body was never found.
All three men were arrested on suspicion of involvement at various points. None was charged, and the Aruban authorities said they lacked the evidence to bring a case. Mr van der Sloot repeatedly gave differing accounts and withdrew earlier statements. For years he remained the main suspect without ever facing a murder charge.
The murder of Stephany Flores in Lima
On 30 May 2010, five years to the day after Ms Holloway vanished, Stephany Flores Ramírez, 21, was killed in a hotel room in Lima registered in Mr van der Sloot's name. She was a Peruvian business student. Police said they had met at a casino. He left Peru and was detained in Chile within days.
Peruvian police said he gave a full confession. He later said it had been made under pressure and after a promise that he would be sent to the Netherlands. In 2012 a Peruvian court sentenced him to 28 years in prison for her murder.
The Alabama extortion case
In 2010 a federal grand jury in Birmingham, Alabama, indicted him on charges of extortion and wire fraud. Prosecutors alleged that between March and May of that year he tried to obtain $250,000 from Ms Holloway's mother, Beth Holloway. In return he offered to reveal where her daughter's remains were and how she died.
According to the US Department of Justice, he was paid $25,100 in total and then gave information that he later called worthless. The US had no jurisdiction over what happened in Aruba. The charges therefore covered only the alleged scheme to take money from the family.
Temporary transfer from Peru
The charges could not be tried while he was in a Peruvian prison. In June 2023 Peru agreed to a temporary transfer to the United States, and he arrived in Birmingham to face the indictment. Such arrangements let a person be sent abroad for trial and then returned to finish a sentence at home.
The plea and sentence in October 2023
On 18 October 2023 he pleaded guilty to one count of extortion and one count of wire fraud before Judge Anna Manasco in the US District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. He had earlier pleaded not guilty. The judge sentenced him to 20 years, to run concurrently with the Peruvian term, and said he must pay restitution to Beth Holloway.
The plea agreement required him to give full and truthful information about Ms Holloway's disappearance. His statement to his lawyer, which was made public, said he had killed her on a beach in Aruba after she rejected his advances, and had then disposed of her body in the sea. The judge said she had considered the confession when passing sentence, but also said it could not be used against him.
He apologised in court to the Holloway family and his own. Beth Holloway told reporters outside the court that he was no longer a suspect and that he was the killer.
Other sentences and his time in prison
Reports say he received a further sentence of 18 years and four months in January 2023 for trafficking cocaine while in custody. Peruvian sentencing rules are reported to cap his combined prison term at 35 years, which would keep him in custody until around 2045.
He is held at Challapalca prison, a remote high-security facility in the southern Andes. He was moved there after an earlier dispute with a prison director. Reports in 2026 say he has complained of threats from other inmates and asked in August to be transferred. It is not clear whether that request was granted.
Why he has not been tried over Natalee Holloway
Several legal barriers stand in the way. The confession was given within a US plea agreement, and the US cannot try him for a killing in Aruba. Aruba is reported to have a 12-year limitation period for murder, which makes a prosecution there unlikely. Beth Holloway has filed a complaint in the Netherlands, and she hopes he could be prosecuted there once his Peruvian sentence ends. No decision to prosecute has been announced.
Where the case stands
The Peruvian and American convictions stand, and his sentences are being served. Whether any court will ever hear a case over Natalee Holloway's death remains open. A recent Netflix documentary has brought the case back into public view.